by Celina Grace
Kate’s stomach clenched. “Seriously? At least a couple of days?”
“Yes. But at this point, I can’t say more than that.”
“Cause of death?” asked Kate, pushing it. Kirsten gave her a look.
“I’m not speculating.”
“Oh, please speculate.”
“Kate—” After a moment, Kirsten sighed and bent her head down to look at the body. She gently moved his head to one side to examine his neck. “Same as the others, I would say. Blood loss from a wound in the neck exacerbated by an overdose of some as yet unknown drug. And that is strictly off the record.”
“Got it,” said Kate, grinning. “Well, I won’t disturb you any longer.” She stepped back and turned, seeing Olbeck entering the tent. He spotted her at the same time and put up his eyebrows in a greeting.
Kate could scarcely contain herself as he walked up to her. “Body’s been dead at least two days. So that means—” She realised Joshua was listening to her and moved away a little, lowering her voice. “So that means Pound is still in the frame.”
“Yes. Yes, it does.” Olbeck sounded slightly more distracted than Kate would have liked. She was opening her mouth to ask him a question when she saw who he was looking at. Joshua was looking straight back at him and there was something in their gaze that Kate suddenly felt, a spark, a warmth. She held her breath; it was as if a hand had twisted the bottom of her stomach.
It was all over so quickly that Kate was left wondering if she had imagined that sudden searing glance between the two men. Surely she had? Olbeck turned to her and said briskly, “Does Anderton know all the facts yet?”
Kate was still wondering whether she’d imagined something between Olbeck and Josh or not. “Yes – yes, I think so. Well, he knows everything that we know so far.”
“Would you mind giving him a ring and checking if there’s anything else? Now that we have an estimated time of death. The press is already gathering outside, and they’re going to need someone to give them a statement.”
“Oh, God.” Kate forgot about the glance and thought only of the chaos that could have been about to ensue. “I’ll go and ring him right away.”
Despite her words, she felt a curious reluctance to leave Olbeck in the tent with Josh. What was she so afraid of? Had she imagined the warmth in that quick, exchanged glance? It was nothing, she told herself firmly, marching towards the exit of the tent. You’ve just got a guilty conscience because of Anderton, that’s all. You’re seeing things that don’t exist.
Anderton was unavailable when she called, probably because he was still interviewing Robert Pound. Kate left a message, wishing she could add something loving or saucy onto the end of it, and put her phone away.
There was so much to be done; witnesses to be interviewed, statements to gather, CCTV records to check, forensic tests to be done and investigated… Kate felt a great weariness at the thought. She hadn’t been sleeping too well over the past few nights and now she felt like she’d like nothing more than to crawl into her own bed, minus even Anderton, and sleep for about a hundred years. She remembered that she and Olbeck were supposed to be having a drink together this week – she’d almost harangued him into agreeing. Because there was something funny going on, wasn’t there? Or was there? Again, Kate found herself assailed by doubt. Was she imagining things because of what she was up to with Anderton? And, oh God, was she going to come clean with Olbeck and tell him what had been going on? I have to, she thought, almost fearfully. I can’t keep pushing all these secrets down and keeping them in, it’s destroying our friendship. But would telling him destroy it anyway? I’ve been lying to him for so long…
“You all right, bird?”
Kate, who found she’d had her eyes closed and fists clenched to the side of her face, opened her eyes to see Chloe regarding her with suspicion and anxiety. “Yes. Sorry. It’s all getting a bit much.”
“Hmm. So it seems.” For a second, Chloe looked as though she was going to say more but obviously thought better of it. “Listen, I’ve been thinking. That DNA report should be back from the labs by now. Why don’t you head back to the office and have a look, see what we’ve got? Rav’ll be snowed under with everything else and Theo, Mark and I can get on with stuff here.”
“Okay.” Kate didn’t usually want to leave a crime scene so early but she felt a flash of gratitude to Chloe for giving her the option. “I can’t get hold of Anderton, and he’ll need to know time of death, in any case.” She realised that, almost instinctively, she never referred to Anderton as ‘the boss’ anymore. She knew why, too.
“Great. Fingers crossed we’ve got a DNA match to one or more of the bodies.”
“Yes.” Kate said; only that one word but it was in tones of fervent agreement. She and Chloe said goodbye and then Kate hurried off towards where she had parked her car. The first of the autumn leaves rustled crisply beneath her feet as she ran, almost loud enough to drown out the flashing and clicking of the cameras massed over by the entrance to the graveyard.
Chapter Twenty-One
As Chloe had predicted, Rav was almost buckling under the weight of trying to simultaneously answer multiple phones calls, deal with paperwork and field enquiries from other officers. He looked rather as if he wanted to kiss Kate when she hurried back into the office.
“Thank God. Can’t cope with it all,” he panted, crashing a phone handset into its cradle as he saw off the most recent caller. “Reports have just come in, I haven’t even had a chance to look yet.”
“Don’t panic,” said Kate, resisting the urge to add Mister Mannering on the end of her sentence. Rav was far too young to probably have even heard of Dad’s Army. Smiling to herself, she picked up the pile of reports freshly biked over from the laboratory and took them into the kitchen to read while she made Rav and herself a coffee.
Kate was highly experienced by now at picking out the salient points of a report. Besides, in this one, there was literally one thing she was looking for – the presence of Robert Pound’s DNA at any of the crime scenes. It took her only a matter of minutes to find the bold red stamp that proclaimed ‘match’. Kate closed her fingers in a triumphant fist and let out a whoop.
Rav looked up. “We’re good?”
“Oh, we’re good.” Kate gleefully leapt up from her seat. “Keith Farmer, DNA match found on his skin. Got you, you bastard!”
Rav looked pained. “Hold your horses. That’s one bit of evidence.”
“It’ll be enough for an extension.” Kate weaved her way through the chairs and the desks on the way to the door. “I’ll tell Anderton right now.” She strode out, ignoring Rav’s plea not to leave him to deal with all the phone calls. Then, feeling guilty, she stuck her head into one of the other offices to see if she could find their former colleague, Anne Whittacker, would mind helping out answering a few phone calls, just for ten minutes.
That sorted – good old Anne, she was reliable – Kate hurried along to the interview rooms to find Anderton. She knew he was still in with Robert Pound and quickly found the room they were using. Usually, she would have knocked and entered the room but this time, standing outside the interview room door, she felt a curious reluctance to do so. Why? Was she worried about seeing Anderton, for some reason? Why would she be? Surely it couldn’t be because she was scared of Robert Pound?
Kate scoffed a little uneasily to herself but she still didn’t knock on the door for a moment. Then, bracing herself, she tentatively rapped on the painted wood. She waited a long time for something to happen. There was no ‘come in’ from Anderton. Kate was almost at the point of thinking that something dreadful had happened when the door suddenly jerked open and Anderton came out and shut it firmly behind him.
“Kate,” he said, not looking as pleased to see her as she’d anticipated. “What’s the problem?”
Her triumph at the discovery dimming a little, Kate hurr
iedly told him about the DNA match.
Then he did look pleased. “Great. Bloody good work. That’s really good.” He smiled and said, “It’s a start, anyway. It’s nowhere near enough for a charge.”
“I know. But don’t worry, we’ll get more.” They were necessarily standing quite close together in the narrow corridor, and Kate battled not to put her arms about him. “We’ll test the latest body and go through all the other reports.” She hesitated, not wanting to pry too much. “Are you – are you getting anywhere with him, do you think?”
Anderton frowned. It was less a frown of anger than of thoughtfulness. “I think I might be. Hard to tell.”
Kate was opening her mouth to ask if she could sit in the interview for a bit when he seemed to read her mind. “Kate, it’s best if I carry on by myself. He’s starting to trust me a bit more, and I think another person in the room, a woman at that, might set us back a bit.”
“Okay,” said Kate, somewhat taken aback. “I’ll – I’ll let you get on with things, then.” She recollected herself and added the further information that they’d gleaned from the discovery of the third victim. “The paths are adamant that he’s been dead at least a couple of days. So that means Pound could still have had the means to kill him.”
“Yes. Yes, I know.” Anderton looked as though he were going to say something else for a minute but clearly thought better of it. “I have to go back in now.”
“See you later, then. Good luck.” Kate smiled bravely and stepped back. Anderton gave her a wink and a smile and went back into the interview room.
*
The rest of the day passed in something of a blur. Kate fielded calls, wrote up reports, arranged interviews with witnesses, pored over forensic reports and kept herself and Rav fortified with endless coffees. Gradually, the other members of the team returned to their desks and at five o’clock, they all stopped to watch Anderton conduct the latest press conference on the little television that lived in the kitchen area.
Kate’s first, frivolous thought was how handsome her lover looked on screen. Chastising herself, she made herself listen to what he was saying, although it was nothing that they weren’t already aware of. The team listened to Anderton telling the press that they had a suspect in custody, although no charges had yet been brought, and for anyone to contact the police if they had any information, no matter how trivial they might assume it to be. The e-fit of Robert Pound was displayed on the screen, and Kate found herself wondering whether it would one day be as famous as the mugshots of other serial killers.
Once the press conference was over, and Anderton’s image on the screen had been replaced the news of a hurricane in the West Indies, Kate switched off the set. She saw, with surprise, that Olbeck had joined them in their watching of the news – she hadn’t seen him arrive.
As they headed back to their desks, she caught his arm. “Hey, I know everything is really, really hectic at the moment, but if we get a chance, did you want to come over for dinner tonight?”
Olbeck hesitated. Kate could see he’d lost weight; there were dark shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Never particularly clean-shaven, his stubble was almost full grown enough to be called a beard. For a moment, Kate had the hallucinatory thought that he and Jeff had actually had a baby, or adopted one without telling her or anyone else, and that was what the matter was. The thought made her screw up her face at her weird thought processes.
“Actually, yes, I would like to. Like you say, I don’t know whether we’ll get the chance but if we do, yes, then I’d like to. It’s been absolutely ages since we’ve had a chance to get together.” He smiled down at her and she returned it, and for a moment, it was just like it used to be, when they were uncomplicated friends.
“Well, that’s great. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.” Kate had another thought that Anderton might want to see her too, and for the first time, she was adamant that she wouldn’t weaken and blow Olbeck off. He needed her more than her lover did, right at this time.
They parted at Kate’s desk with another smile, and Olbeck headed back to his office. Kate looked at the pile of folders on her desk and thought of all the painstaking unpicking of evidence that lay ahead of her. Then she thought of Joe Vickers, and Keith Farmer, and the most recent as yet unidentified young man, and dismissed the groan she had been about to utter. She sat down at her desk and prepared to work.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Right up until about nine o’clock that evening, Kate and Olbeck’s dinner date looked in imminent danger of not materialising. Then Rav managed to pinpoint some promising CCTV footage of Robert Pound being seen in the vicinity of the churchyard where Joe Vickers’ body had been found, both on the night of the murder and two days before it had taken place. This, along with the DNA match that Kate had come up with, made them all hopeful that a charge could soon be brought. “It’s a long shot but it might just work,” had been Theo’s cocky reflection. The new evidence had been compiled and presented to Anderton, and only then could the weary members of the team make their way home.
Kate drove Olbeck to her house in her car, and on the way there they chatted about the case, speculating as to what might happen and whether they had enough evidence for a charge. “I think it’s a bit thin for the CPS,” was Olbeck’s considered opinion, and Kate had to agree. “But you know the boss. If anyone’s going to get a confession, it’s going to be him.”
Once back at Kate’s house, there was the whole business of turning on the heating, lighting the fire, feeding Merlin and ordering a takeaway pizza. “You must just about keep that local place in business,” Olbeck remarked, and Kate ruefully agreed. She knew she spent far too much money on takeaway food but the last thing she felt like doing after a fourteen-hour day’s work dealing with the scum of the Earth was cooking.
“Hey, if God had intended me to cook, why did he invent ready meals?” she put to Olbeck, smiling.
They ate the pizza and then sat back on the sofa in Kate’s living room with matching sighs of contentment. For Kate, it felt a bit strange to have a man other than Anderton sitting beside her on the sofa, even if it was someone as familiar as Olbeck.
“God,” said Olbeck, yawning hugely. “I’m not going to be able to stay long, Kate, I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
“I know,” said Kate, herself catching the yawn. “But it’s good to see you. I just wanted...”
“What?”
Kate didn’t know why she was suddenly hesitant. Yes, you do, you just don’t know if you’ll like the answer.
“I was just wondering how things were, you know,” she said, a little lamely. “How the – you know, the adoption was going?”
Olbeck’s face tightened. With his heavy stubble and his dark eyebrows pulled down, he suddenly looked very forbidding.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Kate said hastily.
Olbeck looked moodily into his glass of red wine. She thought for a moment that he wasn’t going to answer. Then he sighed and looked up. “Things aren’t going very well, actually, Kate. Not very well at all.”
“Oh dear.” Kate found herself frowning. “Do you mean the application or the process, or…”
“Me and Jeff, that’s what I mean. We’re not going very well.”
At that moment, Kate had no soothing words. She felt that uneasy twist to her stomach that she’d felt before. “Are you both really stressed about the adoption—” she began but he spoke over her.
“We’re just arguing all the time. About the most stupid things. He riles me, and I rile him, and then we argue, then we’re silent with each other.” He paused and then went on. “We haven’t had sex for weeks, we barely even touch anymore.”
Kate listened with increasing horror. She had always thought of Olbeck and Jeff, particularly since their marriage, as one of the most loving and stab
le couples she knew. “Oh, God,” she said, inadequately. “Do you – perhaps some couples counselling would help?”
Olbeck snorted, and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “We’ve had couples counselling – we had to for the adoption, a few sessions, at least. Didn’t seem to help. I think we argued more in the car on the way back than we did in the bloody sessions.”
“Oh.” Kate wasn’t often lost for words but she certainly was now.
A silence fell. Olbeck leant forward to top up his glass. Kate was about to remind him that he was driving before realising she’d given him a lift and his car was back at the station. She’d have to call him a taxi.
“Maybe we’re both getting cold feet,” said Olbeck quietly. He was turning his wine glass slowly around and around in his hands. “I don’t know. Having a child was all we ever wanted, and now it’s almost a reality, I don’t know…maybe it’s not, after all. Or not with each other – oh, God—” He put his glass down on the coffee table and sank his face into his hands.
Kate said nothing but she put a tentative hand out to rub his back. He didn’t protest. They sat in silence again for a few minutes, with Kate wondering what to say that would make him feel better. She couldn’t think of anything.
After a few minutes, Olbeck sat up, dislodging Kate’s hands. “Oh, forget I said anything,” he said and, as she was about to protest, added “Anyway, enough about me. What about you? What’s going on with you?”
Caught on the back foot, Kate mouthed for a moment. “Not – not much,” she eventually stammered.
Olbeck looked sceptical. “Something’s going on with you,” he said. “Everyone’s noticed. You’ve got something on your mind. Or someone.”
Kate could feel the blush rising, heating her cheeks. “It’s nothing serious,” she said, not really knowing what she was saying.
“Well, if it’s not serious, then who the hell is he?” Olbeck tipped the last of the wine into his glass. “You’ve been incredibly secretive, lately. Even Theo’s noticed, and you know he’s always the last to know.”